Alas, I will survive. I’ve pretty much just been lazing about for three hours this morning, and after a nap at 8:30am (yeah) I decided that I really didn’t feel like abandoning you guys again! SO for today’s post, I’m joining up with Katie to appreciate some awesome things I’ve discovered since stopping counting calories.

1. Mealtime compulsions. Anyone with even a little bit of a disordered past can usually realize that their thoughts make NO sense, yet can’t break free from them. One of mine was lunch before 12pm. It wasn’t because I was planning on not eating, or because I didn’t want to need a snack, or ANYTHING other than I just didn’t want to have lunch before noon. Welp I worked out at a weird time for me yesterday and had a freaking delicious snack plate on my deck at 11:30 for lunch and the world kept spinning.

2. Work delights. You guys, I have worked in a cafe with freaking delicious food for a year and I’ve barely eaten any of it. Part of it is because it’s pretty unhealthy, but also because there is NO WAY to figure out calories/macros. I’m seriously living up the chai lattes/cookies/yogurt + granola these days because yum. For some reason I still haven’t moved on to hot chocolate and mochas, but I will get there. I’m sure the 30C weather is part of it. 😉

3. Intuitive exercise. Now that I don’t have X as my TDEE, there is no reason to do A, B and C on the daily/6x per week. Take today: I was planning on going for a run, but given my nap 2 hours waking up that is not going to happen. I know I would feel (even more) sluggish and gross for the rest of the day. Lazy days FTW.

4. Samples. Do you know how much fun it is to say “Wow, I see a free sample of cinnamon coffee cake or peanut butter chocolate cookie, but I don’t really want it.” NONE. Now I just need to remember to have cash with me so I can buy said cookie (from the gods) at the market.

So proud of you for switching over to listening to your body! I feel like getting so caught up with calories/macros/burning X amount of calories doesn’t leave much room for actually living and there’s so much happiness in the freedom of going with the flow. Heck, if I’m at Costco, you better believe I’m eating every.single.one of their free samples, and a treat with my coffee always makes my mornings better.

This makes me SO happy! I had several volumes of eating rules and times memorised myself for a few years; after slowly but surely breaking every one of them – seeing anyone else breaking free from those fruitless, unhappy laws has an astounding giddy effect on me :D. So now I can finally envy you for real with your job at the café 😉 .